


A Night Apart

by Jade_Waters



Category: Transformers: Beast Wars
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Robot blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-08 13:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/761837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Waters/pseuds/Jade_Waters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stuck together for a night, Dinobot and Rattrap try that "working together" thing Optimus is always after them about.  (Can be read as friendship or pre-slash).</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Night Apart

Dreams, broken images of battles already fought.  Darkness.  _Augh_! Pain!  Sharp pain, like a sword in his gut.  Dinobot roared to consciousness, fighting to sit up only to feel the pain increase.  A voice shouted at him to lay down, stop moving, _for the love of Primus and all the cheese sandwiches,_ stop fighting!  The rat’s stench hit him then, and his visuals finally focused enough for him to realize there was no battle, and he was not in Predacon hands.  There was only Rattrap.  And a cave.  But the entrance couldn’t be far – he could hear rain.  Yes, a storm in fact, approximately 15 meters around a gentle bend in the rock.  He saw the flash of lightning and realized during the thunder that Rattrap was still trying to get him down.  Somewhat urgently.  Processor finally catching up but still sluggish, he focused his attention on the rodent.  “Will you lie down already?  You’re dripping mech fluids all over the place here and ya just undid half of your patch job!”    
  
Dazed, he complied.  The pain hardly stopped, but at least it eased as his weight rested once again on the cave floor.  “What…”  Tilting his head up, he saw Rattrap with his arms, covered in oil and energon, buried to the elbows inside of him, working furiously, muttering about needing parts and the stupidity of Predacon system designs.    
  
“What do you mean, ‘What?’?”  Rattrap said out loud.  “What’s it look like?”  Sparing a nanoclick to glare at Dinobot’s face, he sighed, continued, aiming for calm, “While I was busy blasting Waspinator outta the sky, and you were toasting Terrorsaur, Inferno got behind ya long enough to blow a hole through the left side of your body.  You were down and out by the time I got to you.  Now, I’m busy trying to save your sorry skid plates.  So, since this is gonna hurt like the Pit, I suggest you go back into stasis for a while.”  
  
Dinobot was pretty sure parts of that story were missing – like how they’d gotten to a cave, and where the Predacons had gone – but Rattrap pinched something inside of him and the pain radiating out of his middle convinced him that maybe, for once, he should listen to the rat.  Without another word, he powered down.  
  
*  
  
It was dark when Dinobot came back online.  This time, he allowed his systems to finish booting up before he tried to move.  Diagnostics returned that he was low on energy and still in need of repair, but he had stabilized.  The pain had dulled and his own internal repairs had mended much of the less-serious damage.  Transforming would be painful, but his sensors indicated only traces of energon fields, so remaining in robot mode should be safe for now.  Slowly, the warrior sat up, looking for Rattrap.  At first, in the darkness, he saw nothing.  Then, a lightning flash glinted off the other bot’s armor, revealing him for an instant.  He was sitting a few meters away, his back to the cave wall, one arm draped over his knee.  He was positioned such that he could see both the cave entrance and Dinobot, but it was very difficult to see him.  Dinobot was almost ready to be impressed at the rat’s skill.  Almost.  Except Rattrap was asleep.    
  
Dinobot wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or scowl.  It was so predictable – leave the mouse alone for a few clicks and he either got into trouble or fell asleep.  But it was also frustrating.  Rattrap clearly possessed the ability to become a very skilled warrior, but he squandered his talents on games and laziness.    
  
But when the raptor turned to push himself up, his hands landed in a sticky, faintly-glowing blue puddle of mech fluid.  He snarled softly to himself and stood up quickly.  When he looked up, red optics squinted at him, trying to assess his damage.  Dinobot snarled again, fighting back the annoying urge to feel impressed or grateful or… any of those other foolish Maximal emotions.    
  
But Rattrap wasn’t expecting any gratitude.  He was smarter than that, and moreover he wasn’t looking for thanks.  Not this time.  This time, he only asked, “You ok, Chopper face?”  
  
Sarcasm was Dinobot’s first impulse, but as he stepped closer to Rattrap he noticed that, although the rat had tried to wash it off, mech fluids still spotted his arms and fur.  A biting response died in his vocalizer, and instead he replied, “Yes.  Diagnostic scans report that I am stable.”  Despite his efforts to hide it, Dinobot saw Rattrap’s relief as his optics widened, tilted up, for a nanoclick.  “Why, pray tell, did I just wake up on the floor of a cave instead of in a CR chamber?”  
  
Rattrap smirked.  “Cuz it just ain’t your lucky day.  Or, maybe it is, since yer still online.”  The rat gave Dinobot a mocking grin and patted the ground beside him.  Rolling his optics and growling, Dinobot sat – he did not have the energy to continue standing, pride be damned.  “You sure yer alright?”  
  
“If you don’t cease such inane questioning, vermin, I might have to use you to replenish my energy reserves,” Dinobot said, showing off his teeth.  “What are we doing here?”  
  
“Sheesh!  Try to help a guy…” Rattrap muttered.  “When yer sorry aft went down, two of the Preds had already been hit.  Apparently they weren’t really there for a reason, we’re just unlucky enough to have run into _their_ scoutin' mission.  So, Inferno decided on a tactical retreat, real official-like, laughing like a maniac the whole way.  Bout the time I made it over to you, it seemed the Preds mighta had a better reason than my pistol for leaving.  This storm was rollin’ in fast.  So I dragged you in here, since it was about the only place I could see where lightning wouldn’t fry both our circuits.  It’s something serious – been going on for hours now.  I did manage to contact Optimus after…” he looked down at his hands, “I told him we were alive, taking shelter from the storm and all that.  Course he didn’t like it much, but what’s he gonna do about it?”  
  
“I was not aware you’d become a medic,” a hint of cynicism coloring Dinobot’s half-question.  
  
Rattrap narrowed his optics in a sideways glare, “Yeah, well, I guess it _is_ yer lucky day.”  
  
“Hn.”  Dinobot gazed out at the storm for a long moment before adding, “Perhaps it is.”  
  
That little acknowledgement was honestly more than Rattrap had expected from the ex-Pred.  The spy relaxed against the cave wall, letting a small smile linger on his face.  He felt exhausted, having worked on Dinobot for hours after dragging him in here.  Although he wasn’t about to say so out loud, he’d been worried sick for the long hour between when he’d done all the repairs he could and when Dinobot had finally come back out of stasis.  Now, relief left him drained.  He couldn’t sleep yet, though, not with his partner in such poor condition.  Letting his own optics follow Dinobot’s to the rain, he said in a soft voice, “I was part of Cybertron’s peace keeping forces for a while.  Not the regular guys.  Special stuff - the stuff Maximals don’t like to talk about.”  He paused, but Dinobot sat still beside him, quiet, so he continued, “I spent a lot of time undercover, which meant I didn’t have a standard unit with medics hanging around all the time.  Sometimes a situation went bad fast, and I had to take care of things myself or lose bots.  I learned some first aid as basic training, but most of what I know I picked up the hard way.”  He fell silent, expecting some rude retort.  
  
But none came.  Dinobot sat silent, contemplating.  He found himself, proud warrior, once again in debt to the scurrying rodent.  Yet the rat never held such debts over him.  No, instead he opened himself up, revealed a sliver of his past.  For free.  For Dinobot alone to hear in this moment, cut off from the rest of this wretched war on this desolate planet.  A gift, on top of saving his life.  The least he could do was return the favor.  In an equally soft voice, not wanting to break the moment, Dinobot began his own story, choosing to share where he’d learned how to fight with a sword.    
  
The two bots went on swapping stories, exchanging bits of themselves, all through the long, stormy night.  Safely hidden away, they didn’t bicker or mock.  Their shoulders touched as they watched the rain and lightning.  As the storm began to calm, Dinobot slipped into recharge, his energy too low for him to fight it any longer.  When Rattrap finished the story he’d been telling, he noticed, but let his companion sleep.  Letting his weight relax into Dinobot’s side, he felt more at peace than he had in ages.  Peace.  He snorted to himself - such a foreign concept, not just here but in his whole life.    
  
As the storm moved on and dawn began to glow a soft blue, he decided to enjoy the feeling for a few cycles longer before venturing back out into the world. 

 

End

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Night Together](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4429349) by [Jade_Waters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Waters/pseuds/Jade_Waters)




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